


The Hazard of the Die

by Zeke Black (istia)



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Old West, POV Ezra Standish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-04
Updated: 2004-10-04
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:10:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/Zeke%20Black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes chancing all is the only choice--even for Ezra with his abhorrence for gambling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hazard of the Die


      
    
       I have set my life upon a cast
       And I will stand the hazard of the die.
    
          --William Shakespeare, _Richard III_, 5.4.9-10

  


###### Los Cerrillos Mining District, New Mexico Territory | 1880

Carbonateville was a gambler's nirvana. Smack in the middle of the oldest mining district in the country, the town was the focal point for the area's soaring population of rough-coated miners and fine-garbed entrepreneurs, united in their shared goal of sifting from the ground its wealth of silver, lead, zinc, turquoise, and gold. A year ago, before the arrival of the railroad and white men's interests and the silver rush, the area was an unknown backwater where the Pueblo people gathered their ceremonial turquoise from Mount Chalchihuitl as they'd done for centuries while pinon trees four hundred years old grew from the huge tailings piles. That serene vista was gone, transformed into a bustling town of tents and rude plank buildings crammed with people of all stations grubbing for their share of the riches--and eager to spend or wager it as soon as they'd earned it.

Twenty...no, make that twenty-one saloons immediately identifiable. And at least three hotels. Riding slowly down the main street, Ezra Standish maintained a mien of bland affability, but looked and cataloged everything around him with a razor gaze while a smile of scented opportunity spread inside him like a fire's glow. The fingers of his left hand, resting on his thigh as he rode, twitched in anticipation of the feel of pasteboard. The awareness of the dust coating his dun traveling coat and clinging to his hair, unpleasantly sweaty under his hat, which had been preoccupying his attention for the past day, faded as he weighed possibilities and considered options. A surfeit of opportunities. Ah, bliss.

Though paradise had its downside. After an exasperating exchange with a blatant and obdurate thief masquerading as a liveryman, Ezra handed over an extortionate fee for the privilege of stabling and vittling his horse. Having asked about a room for himself and blanching upon discovering he'd have to pay almost as much to share a tent with five other men as the stall for his horse cost, he philosophically downgraded his projected profits at the tables. He'd have to spend several hours with the cards before merely breaking even after paying the local prices for food, drink, accommodation, and a bath.

But in the highly unlikely event the gamble he'd come here for paid off, it would all be more than worthwhile. And if matters fell out as he expected, coin wouldn't nearly tally the cost of this venture.

Two hours later, clean from a visit to the bath house and wearing fresh clothes, he left his gear locked in his room--a cubbyhole, but his alone--over a middling-sized saloon and strolled into the late afternoon sunshine. The saloon was at the northern end of the street, a marginally less rowdy area. Two doors down was the first of the tent saloons. Notable mostly for its dirt and the apathetic look of its denizens, it didn't tempt him past the doorway. The men had the appearance of the unemployed, the rare unfortunate souls in a boomtown. They were unlikely to have either information or adequate funds for a worthwhile game, and the house liquor, he suspected, would not be an enticement to any but the crudest palate.

A livelier canvas alehouse kitty-corner to it was a better prospect and he stayed to sample the whiskey and survey the lay-out, patrons, and singer before moving on to investigate the other eighteen saloons and three hotels, pausing for dinner along the way.

By mid-evening, he was ensconced in the most sedate of the drinking establishments. The Turquoise City Gentlemen's Club boasted carpeted floors, draft-free wooden walls, and oil paintings, which, while of dubious merit, were a step more refined than the antlers that formed the most conspicuous ornamentation in most of the other saloons. The piano here wasn't a strident noise, but a soothing and pleasant background accompaniment to the sound of billiards being played on the table prominently situated in the middle of the room under its own wagon wheel of lights--the only table in the entire district, as yet; conversations between the town's wealthier citizens that more often than not tended to business concerns; and poker between men with the means and inclination for deep play. With accustomed finesse, Ezra invited himself into a game. He quickly but unobtrusively parlayed his relatively small stake into a sum that allowed him to compete without posing an overt threat while regretfully limiting his consumption of the very fine house bourbon to just enough to present a sociable and relaxed attitude.

Vin likened him to a snake, half-jocularly, when Ezra was focused on a con or a game: "All purty and peaceful seeming on the outside while just sitting there planning when to strike at any fool who gets too close." Ezra allowed himself a brief wistful smile before turning his attention firmly back to the matter at hand.

When the calendar clock on the wall beside the bar struck half-past midnight, a pall of smoke from imported cigars hung thick over the table. All five of the men still playing had shed their coats in the warmth radiating from the large stove, and a relaxed conviviality had woven a deceptive sense of brotherhood between them. No man had either lost or won a disproportionate amount and the discourse had mostly avoided such touchy subjects as disputed claims, competing political aspirations, and divergent ideas for development of the district. Indulgent of themselves and each other, Ezra's fellow players were mellow and satisfied with their evening's sport. They'd draw it to a close soon, though, being working men still who would be up in a timely manner the next day to oversee their operations and make sure the competition--including their companions at the table--didn't snatch some advantage over them.

Summoning his best snake-smile, Ezra adroitly led the conversation in the direction he'd intended from the start, keeping his voice to its most nonchalant drawl.

"Even with the fortunate circumstance of the railroad lately extending its line to the town, I imagine the problem of security, both in guarding the ore at your mines and in transporting it in bulk to the station, must be an ever-present concern. I believe I heard some talk of regulators, or gunmen, being employed for that purpose?"

A brisk discussion of security issues engaged all four of the mine-owners. Ezra listened closely while dealing a hand and affecting casual interest, dismissed most of it from his mind, and seized on the one piece of information he'd wanted.

He left the club whistling thirty minutes later. He walked to his cubbyhole with a light step that belied both his tiredness and his simmering anxiety.

:::::::

He got up earlier the next day than he'd intended because of gunplay somewhere nearby in the street. Consisting of a lot of shouting and three shots in total--the last the retort of a shotgun he assumed belonged to one of the town's lawmen, either a legally appointed or a privately hired one--it lasted just long enough to wake him. He lay for a few minutes in the narrow bed. His fingers worried at a darned patch on the coarse cotton sheet until he forcibly quashed the nervous action and hauled himself up.

He cleaned and meticulously checked his guns, sitting half-dressed, in the lack of a chair, on the bed with a threadbare towel spread over the blanket. When finished with that job, he took his usual care in dressing. No point in hurrying, or getting ahead of himself. He'd mapped out the day after retiring the night before; whether or not his plans would bear fruit was impossible to say, but flinging himself headlong at matters wouldn't change anything.

He donned again the more flamboyant of the two vests he'd brought. The diamond-patterned silver and purple brocade matched the plum tail coat that was all he'd had room for as a change from the somber travel coat and vest. It was one of the oddities of his nature that while he liked to have his own things around him and a good selection of clothing--a necessity in his profession, though he acknowledged an element of vanity as well--he spent much of his time on the move and had never become comfortable dragging a pack animal along. Though, in truth, he'd probably just have to keep abandoning the creature when a precipitous exit from a town was the only sensible course. He found himself in that type of situation less often now than he had when he was younger, but it still occurred with melancholy frequency. Best to travel light...or stay in one place.

He breakfasted in the saloon below his room, taking advantage of the relative quiet to chat with the bartender. Confirming his suspicion that this particular saloon was not a likely bet, he tipped the keep and left. He visited in turn, for varying lengths of time, the four saloons and one hotel he'd determined the previous day were the most likely arenas in which to run his quarry to ground. Clientele, ambience, entertainment, and the quality of the alcohol served in each had all factored into his decision. He was confident he'd judged correctly. At least one of the messages he left--_a friend passing through_\--would be delivered.

A fatalistic weariness settled into his marrow as he left the final saloon. It had taken him weeks to make the decision to act. Now he'd set events in motion, the limbo he'd been living in would be ended, one way or the other. None of it was within his control at this point any more, really, than it had been for the last three years. He squared his shoulders and headed for the livery.

The noise from the saloon faded as he walked down an alley and the sound of crickets rose like a hum on the breeze. A purplish glaze bathed the half-dozen Cerrillos Hills thrusting high against the sky, drawing his eyes up and away from the man-made unsightliness of the town and the mining detritus. As he neared the livery, the smell of manure, horse, and heated metal in the forge assaulted his nostrils, overpowering even the dust. Curious how a scent he'd swear he'd never miss if he never had to smell it again nevertheless grounded him with its familiarity.

Curious how much of his life fell along such lines.

His horse was in a corral behind the livery with a number of other geldings and a pair of mules. He whistled his mount to him and fed him the carrot he'd purchased from the market. The beast had been rolling in the dust; his thick long mane was tangled and limp with sandy soil. Ezra spent a peaceable hour brushing the gloss back into the coat, checking and tending the hoofs, and running practiced eyes and hands over the legs for sign of any damage sustained during their journey on rough trails, somehow reassured in knowing he'd have it all to do again the next day. Whatever else changed in life, in him, the one surety was the necessity to attend to his horse and his guns daily.

His horse, his guns, and his wits were his only protections in a chancy world. One of them might let him down one day, but it wouldn't be due to his carelessness.

:::::::

He dined late and dallied over his meal in the hotel restaurant he'd fingered as one possible meeting place. While the likelihood of his quest ending during supper itself was slim, there was no point in rushing, or courting indigestion on an already uneasy stomach. He anticipated a number more hours to get through before his uncertainty over the outcome of his venture would be put to rest; if, indeed, the occasion even arose this evening. He supposed there must be some nights when Chris was detained on business or simply didn't feel like visiting a saloon.

And even if he did....

Even if he did, Ezra knew there was still a possibility seeing Chris might shatter his hard-won resolve.

When he eventually left the hotel, it was full dark. Lanterns dotted the boardwalk, barely piercing the pitch blackness between the swathes of light and noise spilling from the open doors of the saloons lining the main street. He visited the closest of the four he'd targeted, then the next down a connecting side street, stopping in each only as long as it took to observe the visible patrons. He couldn't ascertain who might be upstairs with a saloon girl, but that was of as little consequence as the Cyprians' cribs he had no intention of checking.

Exiting the second saloon, he turned north and retraced his steps, passing by the hotel he'd eaten in and going to the third of the saloons a fair way farther up the street. He looked over the men in that one and moved to the fourth. He stood at the bar inspecting the large, crowded room. This saloon would do to wait in, offering ample means for him to distract his thoughts. He got a whiskey and studied the poker being played, finally choosing to join a game of medium challenge when a chair was freed at a table on the gallery. The play was good enough to require his attention, allowing him scant time to brood, but not so challenging he couldn't keep his ears attuned elsewhere.

He'd been playing for a couple of hours and was a tidy amount richer when he heard a distinctive set of booted steps entering the saloon, sharp and sure to his ears, the rap of the confident strides on the boards as familiar as the ring of the spurs. He looked up and saw Chris walking straight to the bar without looking left or right, though those hawk's eyes of his would immediately alert him to peripheral danger if it threatened.

Ezra's pulse was abruptly a tattoo drumming in his ears, muting all other sounds. He looked at the back of Chris's rangy figure. In one piece, then, and undamaged as far as could be seen. Why was it always such a relief to be assured that a man as capable of looking after himself as Chris Larabee hadn't, in fact, suffered some debilitating harm between viewings? Might as well worry an alligator couldn't safely rule whatever swamp it chose as its realm--at least until a bigger one came along and ate it.

No one had even gnawed on Chris a little, as far as he could tell, so that was all right. Whatever else happened, that was all right. And if this was the last time he'd be able to reassure himself in person about Chris, then--hell, it wouldn't ever be all right. But that had nothing to do with anything.

He played the hand automatically while keeping his eyes on Chris. Chris got a whiskey, spoke to the keep, and listened to the man's response. Nice to know a good tip did actually get a message delivered as requested. Chris would turn and look around imminently. Ezra scrutinized him, waiting, believing himself ready. He wouldn't look away, not this time.

When Chris's eyes found him, though, and Chris's face blanked momentarily, Ezra flinched. His eyes slid without volition to his cards. As he tried to still his racing heart, he heard those firm steps approaching and looked back up. Chris stood across the table from him, puffing on his cheroot as he glanced at each of the other players before meeting Ezra's eyes and giving a curt nod.

"Good to see you, Ezra."

"A pleasure, indeed, sir, as always." He licked his lips, about to ask if Chris would sit when he was pre-empted.

Chris took his cheroot from his mouth and gazed around the table again, saying in a raspy but mild voice, "Room for another?"

The men exchanged glances before one cleared his throat and pinned on a smile. "Of course, Mr. Larabee. Please join us."

Ezra smothered a grin in his shot glass as Chris plunked down a bottle and pulled out a chair opposite him with a loud scrape, the men on either side of him shuffling their chairs aside. Chris would appear to have made his usual mark on the local community. The men treated him with respect mingled with traces of tamped but perceptible wariness.

A wave of sadness rolled over him, quenching his amusement. Being respected was fine--he enjoyed it on the rare occasions it was directed at him--but it didn't equate to having the companionship of men who knew and cared for one rather than kept a politic distance. Ezra was well acquainted with the loneliness of the solitary wanderer.

He and Chris exchanged comments only about the game, though Chris vaguely answered a few general inquiries from the other players about security matters he oversaw at some of the Los Cerrillos mines. A Santa Fean whose claims were in the Galisteo District made a cautious overture to Chris about hiring him. Chris smiled his wolf's smile and ignored the request. No one else ventured to ask anything similar.

It was always a wonder how such a quiet man could be such a dominating presence in whatever company he was in. Ezra smiled wryly, feeling the allure of Chris's vitality himself while pain like broken glass rubbed inside his chest.

He stole looks at Chris during the play, storing up, as he always did, memories of his narrowed verdigris eyes; the lank hair brushed back off his forehead; the lines of a hard life etched into the corners of his eyes and around his fine-cut mouth, which could be flinty with ruthless intent or softly playful. Chris's eyes were guarded tonight, as they usually were among strangers. Those eyes made their own frequent covert scans, not of Ezra--he noted that; couldn't help but notice, partly reassured, partly uneasy--but of the saloon and the other players. They were the eyes of a noted gunman whose life depended on his skills in reading the men around him, just as Ezra's skill at reading players was basic to his success or failure in his own milieu. He could read Chris's ease with the present situation, though the easefulness was couched within a subtle tension no one but a dullard could fail to recognize as poised readiness to respond to a threat.

Chris's dynamism affected him as it always did. He lambasted himself, but couldn't stop his eyes from straying continually to Chris's large hands, drawn by each new movement as Chris handled the cards, lifted his glass, poured from the bottle, lit cheroots. Tendons flexed on the weather-browned backs of Chris's hands while his square-tipped fingers handled all they touched with the conviction and grace of strength.

Ezra's sex quivered, a betraying snake in his pants; anticipatory, yearning...needing. The same damned response every time he was near Chris.

And that didn't even count the flips his heart made.

Chris laid his cards down after an hour, knocked back the whiskey in his glass, and stood. Finding himself staring at the bulge outlined by the tight pants at Chris's groin, Ezra forced his eyes up the tall frame to Chris's face. Chris was gathering his winnings, looking at the table. As he put the money into the pocket of his short black jacket, his eyes rose to meet Ezra's.

"I have a bottle of Kentucky mash at my place." Chris tilted his head in question, brows raised.

Ezra smiled. "An offer only an unrefined oaf would even consider disregarding." He stood, smoothly pocketing his winnings. "Gentlemen, thank you for pleasant company and a most satisfying game."

He tipped his hat and received affable nods in return, but didn't miss the quiet collective sigh as Chris left the gallery. He followed Chris outside and stood beside him on the boardwalk, looking over the quilt of dark and light blanketing a hard-working, hard-living community to which sleep seemed a foreign concept.

"Difficult to credit that men who work so hard for long hours each day can play so hard each night."

"Reckon they take it in turns." Chris stepped off the boardwalk; Ezra followed and they walked south down the street. "There's enough of 'em in the area to keep the saloons lively. Go wild one night, nurse a hangover the next day at work, take the night off while others fill the bars, then back the next one." He laughed with the callous understanding of a man who'd had his share of wild nights and next days.

They walked in an easy silence the length of the sprawling street, ignoring the din pouring from saloons, a stutter of gunshots in the distance to the north, and a drunk flung from the door of a tent bar to sprawl in the dirt in front of them. Chris didn't break stride, just took a long step over the weakly pumping legs; Ezra skirted the figure and fell in beside Chris once more.

"Oh, the vicissitudes of life," he moaned. When Chris slanted a look at him, he flung both arms out at the animated scene passing on either side. "Astute merchandisers with sufficient ready capital must be making fortunes here supplying drink to the cretinous multitudes. All it would take is some unique draw, some distinguishing element to set one's establishment apart from what the rest offer."

Chris chuckled. "I expect you're too late. They've covered pretty much everything: dancers, actors, organ-grinders, whores of every stripe. One place has a dancing bear and a fire-eater who puts on a show twice a night."

"Yes, yes, that's what I mean. Why do I always miss out on life's best opportunities?"

Struck with how close to the issue at hand that idle question might cut, he fell silent until Chris turned into the livery.

"We're riding?"

"I have a cabin out at the Grant, one of Maddox's sites."

They walked the animals through the cool blackness of a brilliantly clear night. A sickle moon cast pallid light over the conical bulk of the hills, but it was a tailings pile looming over the mine site that commanded the view as they approached. Chris dismounted at a corral to the west of a clapboard building with a lean-to at the back, possibly the office with a living area attached. An untidy cluster of tents and weathered wood structures to the south and east looked like bunkhouses, storage, and a cookhouse. Ezra examined the scene as he unsaddled his horse and turned him into the corral. Two of the tents were yellow with light, blurred dark shapes visible inside them, and the windows of the largest of the plank buildings spilled lantern light, but the site was quiet. After the hubbub in town, the calmness was both peaceful and slightly unnerving.

"The owner stays in town, but the site boss lives here." Chris nodded to the lightless office.

"His night to run wild in town, I assume?"

He could see the flash of Chris's teeth in the gloom as they walked away from both the corral and the buildings.

"With him, it's most nights. The other men who aren't in town will be settled for the night or playing cards in the bunkhouse. There ain't often much trouble here at night; they save it for town."

He followed Chris a hundred or so yards beyond the corral to an isolated shack on the site's western edge. Chris paused under the roof overhang beside the door to light a lantern hanging on a hook and took it inside. He set it on a table and latched the door shut behind Ezra. Chris indicated the stove, then went to pull down a square of burlap hooked up over a small window. Ezra opened the stove, raked the smoldering bed of coals, and added more from a bucket.

A faint, acrid taint of gunpowder in the air made his nose twitch. He stepped away from the stove and looked around as Chris covered the second window, but the place, as much as he could see in the lantern's dim light, seemed clean. The cabin wasn't spacious, but it was adequate, he supposed, if one didn't care about comfort, refinement, or aesthetic appeal. He sighed. He'd long ago given up ribbing Chris about his living arrangements, which did nothing but afford Chris an obnoxious degree of amusement. A table, a chair, and a bed were all Chris ever seemed to require, anyway--and he seemed able to dispense with any or all of those items without noticing.

Fortunately, this particular temporary abode contained the only furnishing Ezra cared about.

He crossed the room and was standing close when Chris turned away from the window. Ezra saw the hint of a smile as he cupped Chris's night-chilled face and looked at him, then slid his hands behind Chris's neck and urged his head down. Chris's mouth was open when their lips met. Chris's tongue was a delicate charmer against Ezra's, a sweet host offering him entry. He took the invitation, pressed his tongue into Chris's mouth, pressed his body hard against Chris's, reveling in the feel of the strong arms banding him closer yet. He let loose his guards on the hovering state of arousal he'd been in since first seeing Chris and felt his pants bind across his groin. He shifted to rub his crotch against Chris's leg and moaned in pleasure, in pain. Chris was bunched steel inside his much tighter pants, his sex pressing against Ezra's hip, probably more pain than pleasure.

Chris pulled back, the incipient smile full-blown now. Chris dropped his hands to his gunbelt, unbuckling it, and Ezra followed suit. He kept his eyes on Chris as they divested themselves of weapons and jackets and boots in a practiced dance. They maneuvered around each other in a more restrictive spiral than the space necessitated, each brush against the other intentional, fanning their mutual excitement. Chris's eyes were dilated almost to black in the dim light; Ezra wondered if his looked similar. Four eyes of black aglow in the room, all watching the eyes watching them.

He attacked the metal buttons on Chris's shirt, but the bib frustrated his efforts to reach skin. Chris brushed his hands aside with a sultry chuckle that rolled over him like a hot New Orleans breeze and made him shiver. He tugged the shirt from Chris's pants and slid his hands up over the stark staves of the ribcage as Chris lifted his arms to pull the shirt off over his head. Ezra closed his eyes and rested his lips against the hard curve of Chris's chest above his left nipple.

Ezra's drumming pulse drowned all other sounds except the asynchronous beat of Chris's heart vibrating against his mouth. For a moment, the reminder of their intrinsic separateness cut lancing pain through his haze of stimulation. Then Chris's hard-skinned hands were moving up his back, lifting his bunched up shirt, and he willed himself back into sensual oblivion.

His shirt disappeared after a fumble with an elbow bent the wrong way and his pants slithered to the ground before he'd realized Chris had unfastened them. He undid the buttons of Chris's duck pants, careful not to press too hard on the swollen sex trapped within, and left it to Chris to wrestle his skinny legs out of them himself. He watched appreciatively, slipping a hand inside his own drawers and encouraging his cock. It no longer amazed him a man as thin-fleshed as Chris could be such a formidable force even without his gun in hand. Virtually every ounce of flesh on his long bones was muscle and sinew. More to the point, what he lacked in physical mass, he more than made up for in stubborn-assed, relentless determination.

Chris Larabee wasn't a force anyone could harness against his will. Ever. Most people had no trouble discerning that basic truth after the briefest association with Chris. And, while it wasn't as evident straight away, those who had any actual dealings with him soon came to understand--one way or another--he also couldn't be led, unless he chose to allow it.

The narrow bed creaked and shook ominously when they tumbled each other onto it. They froze, but when it didn't collapse, they shared grins and recommenced stroking, licking, and rubbing. He twisted on the bed into a head-to-toe position with Chris and took possession of Chris's cock. He pumped it with the firm grip Chris liked, just this side of pain, smiling at the expected moan and Chris's attempt to push his head down in unsubtle hint. Ezra resisted the pressure, absorbed in exploring the contrasting sensations of hard and soft as the cock stiffened in his hand and the foreskin peeled back, exposing the silken interior wall. He luxuriated in the tactile sensitivity of his hands that he exerted continual effort to preserve, which not only facilitated his handling of the cards, but provided enjoyment in all manner of other manipulations men with work-toughened hands never knew they were missing.

He shifted in the narrow space to pull one leg up, unsurprised but gratified when Chris's fingers obligingly moved between his legs from behind to his genitals and proceeded to practice their own familiar magic on his cock. He gathered Chris's balls into his free hand; when Chris spread his legs, he bent to kiss along one muscled thigh to the warm, damp crease of his groin. The fine hairs on Chris's thigh brushing his face gave way to the coarseness of the pubic hair and he slid his cheek back and forth against them to enjoy that contrast, too. A drop of clear fluid seeped from the slit in Chris's cockhead, forming a dewdrop on the roseate skin for an instant before sliding down like a tear.

Struck with an unexpected pang of anguish, he pressed his face to Chris's belly, heaving in a breath that almost undid him with the overwhelming pungency of Chris's body. Arousal and sweat; cheap soap, nickel tobacco, gun oil and horse: hardly a romantic bouquet when broken down into its parts, yet the totality of Chris meant so much to him he was unmanned with his own need. His cock thrummed in Chris's hand and a humming murmur rolled over him from behind as Chris pressed a finger slick with something, saliva, most likely, into the cleft of his ass. He drew his leg up higher and took a more controlled breath, regaining equilibrium.

When he at last engulfed Chris's cock in his mouth, Chris clutched barnacle-like at his hip in anticipated and welcomed reaction. The hold tightened convulsively as Ezra established a strong, rhythmic sucking motion up and down Chris's length, which Chris matched with pulls on Ezra's cock and knowing thrusts of his fingers over the locus of sensation inside Ezra's rear passage. They moved together with the charmed unison their couplings had developed over the years. Each of them could wring the desired response from the other with the surety of aces over kings.

He increased his sucking pulls on Chris's cock to ensure Chris came first. He'd placed an arm across Chris's pelvis, preparatory, and pressed down to control Chris's bucks as they became erratic. He shut his eyes as the fluid spattered the back of his mouth, too far back for him to taste anything, only feel the texture as he swallowed. The power he held over Chris at that moment, evidenced by Chris's harsh grunt and tremors, sent Ezra over the edge as it always spectacularly did. He retained just enough presence of mind to release Chris's cock into his hand so he didn't accidentally bite down before his own completion overwhelmed him.

It never felt remotely the same, not a jot as exhilarating, to gush his fluid over his own hand, or anyone's, as it did coming with Chris's strong, callused grip on his sex, the feel of it and the knowledge it was Chris combining to send him flying over the moon.

His senses returned to awareness with the prick of stubble against the back of his thigh as Chris feathered a kiss to his ass before sliding his fingers out and flopping tensionless onto the bed. Chris's hand lay companionably on his leg. It was a proffered warmth he wanted nothing more than to cling to in a world growing cold.

He pressed himself up on shaking hands and managed to turn on the narrow bed with only one foot sliding off to the floor. Chris shuffled over to the edge, giving him as much space as possible to lie beside him, and reached for a crumpled rag on the upended crate beside the bed. Chris wiped his hands, tossed the rag back, and folded his far arm up to lie on his chest. He placed his other across the bed in open invitation.

Ezra sat instead, folding his legs under him, studying Chris's relaxed body. The flush of passion on Chris's skin was fading, leaving the natural colors of his sun-browned face and white torso. His hands and lower arms were tanned, the color paling toward the shoulders. Scars were grayish-white puckers on his chest and arms, the older ones smoother than the later. Even the serious wound he'd taken in the Ella Gaines affair a few months before he'd left town was now just a rough mark on his upper chest. Ezra rubbed a finger over it, mindful of Chris's half-closed eyes watching him, of Chris waiting on him.

The wounds inside a man's body were the scars that never healed. Ezra knew that about himself; knew it about Chris. The ones showing no outer sign, veiled from sight, possibly entirely unsuspected, were the scars that ached incessantly, dully--and were ready to flare into agony if touched.

He pulled the blanket up to cover Chris to the waist, the shack feeling chilly in the wake of ardor. He looked into the shadowed corners, aware again of that trace odor.

"Was this a powder shed?"

"Yeah. They built a bigger one farther from the camp. This place was sitting empty, so--"

"So you contrived to avoid, once again, having to bunk with anyone else." He smiled and smoothed his hand along Chris's scantly haired chest, stopping with his palm pressed onto a hard, small nipple. "How convenient that you always manage to find a domicile to yourself wherever you end up."

Chris grinned and lifted his arm to lie across his eyes. His other still lay across the bed, palm up, the skin on the inner arm opalescent in the dusky light. Ezra placed a finger in the hollow of the elbow, relishing the heat of life beneath the skin. He traced the raised blue vein to the thin, tender skin of the wrist. He paused with his finger pressed to the solid thump of Chris's pulse, then continued to the middle of the palm, flattening his hand against Chris's and intertwining their fingers. He swallowed hard when Chris immediately answered his hold.

Butterflies were doing a gavotte in his stomach and his palms were suddenly damp. Any minute now, Chris would be done with merely wondering what was on his mind and ask outright.

He tightened his fingers a last time and gently disengaged his hand. Chris dropped the arm across his eyes to lie on the pillow above his head and looked at him levelly. Still waiting, with the patience of a man who knew he could get the answers he wanted any time he was ready. Ezra chuckled inwardly at the odd humor of it all and stopped putting off what he'd determined he had to do. Fighting away a nervous smile, he drew in a long breath and exhaled slowly, girding himself for one of the hardest passages of his life.

"I know I'm not the person you hoped had come."

Startlement flashed across Chris's face, transmuting on the instant into a frown.

"Shoot, Ezra, I knew it was you." He shook his head, a smile touching the corners of his mouth; a sane man humoring the delusional.

Ezra answered it with as small a smile of his own. "Yes. I know you always know it's me. But you always hope it's him." He licked his lips. "Don't you?"

It was barely a question. The words hung between them, a match struck in the dark illuminating the recess where Chris had tucked the secret away, supposedly safely hidden.

Chris moved, pushing the covers aside and swinging his legs over the side of the bed to sit on the edge facing the far wall. Ezra expected him to leave the bed altogether, put distance between them, but he didn't. Ezra looked at the defenseless naked back turned to him and couldn't keep from going to him. He knelt and slid his arms around Chris's waist, closing his eyes as the insidious warmth of Chris's body, of his presence, touched him. The room was as still as a pool in a cave, the only sounds in the muffling silence their breathing and the faint hiss of the kerosene lantern. He skimmed his lips over a tense shoulder and settled his face against the side of Chris's head.

"Each time I've come to wherever you've fetched up, every few weeks for these nineteen months since you left Four Corners, I've known you'd know the 'friend' or the 'person' or the 'man' who's looking for you is me. But knowing isn't the same thing as hoping. Have you wondered why I leave such vague messages every time? Don't give my name, don't eliminate any possibility of confusion?"

He paused in case Chris wanted to reply. Chris must have wondered; he was too shrewd a man not to have noticed. Ezra had been aware of this probability each time he left one of his messages in towns across two territories. He could have saved both of them pain, but hadn't been able to stop himself from worrying it, like biting at a hangnail. He'd even used simple language for his communications that wouldn't include any key it was from him, though all Chris had to do was ask for a description of the man who'd left the message to be sure. But did he ever do that? Ezra was almost certain he didn't. He believed Chris was as protective of his faint hope as Ezra had been of his. Each of them as much a pathetic fool as the other.

He felt tender of Chris's wants, knowing intimately the throb of Chris's bruised spots, his aloneness, the damned hurting pity of their parallel fates. He tightened his arms and pressed his hands gently one above the other to Chris's hard belly, feeling the slight betraying movement of Chris's quickened breathing.

"The moment you see me, every time, this look crosses your face. The same look each time. It's there and gone in a second, but it's unmistakable. Then your face goes blank, like a shutter slamming down to hide the disappointment that it is, as you knew it would be, me.

"I'm not the one you keep hoping will come to you. I know that. From the first time we scratched this itch between us in bed, I've known there were two people you wanted more than me. And I've always known you're with me only because one of them is dead and the other chose somebody else."

He faltered to a stop as Chris placed his hands, large and warm, over his against Chris's abdomen. Chris rubbed once lightly along his hands, then settled a strong grip on each.

Even after three years of sharing Chris's bed with increasing regularity, he still didn't always accurately predict what Chris would do in any given situation. Not being able to see through him consistently like the pane glass so many people were was an essential part of the appeal of this enigmatic man, and much of the reward of being with him. But it was making things harder now.

He softened his voice, as though whispering might make the words less painful for Chris to hear: "He's happy. And very settled. They're expecting a baby."

He awaited a reaction, but Chris, back rigid as a bony shield against Ezra's chest, remained still. He was a cool tense form in the circle of Ezra's arms, yielding nothing, giving nothing away.

Ezra cleared his throat and resumed a more normal tone, clinging with both hands to his shaky composure. "When you rode out a month after the wedding and I followed not long afterwards for the first time, I thought I could be satisfied because, apart from that flicker of disappointment upon seeing me each time, I had more than I'd ever expected to find in life."

He dropped his head to rest against the sharp point of Chris's shoulder, scenting the dried sweat of their shared exertion as he spoke against the chill flesh.

"I would continue to follow you at intervals from place to place for as long as you need to keep moving. Always, if you never wanted to return to town, never wished to rejoin the rest of us in the benighted role of peacekeepers for a pittance, or return to your property outside Four Corners, make a life there. Hell, I'd leave the town for good myself if you wanted to move to another part of the country entirely and start anew."

He brushed a kiss to the nape of Chris's neck and eased back.

"But I can't...I can't face seeing that look again, Chris. I can live with a specter of the dead in our lives, but I've discovered I can't, after all, cohabit with a living ghost."

He gently pulled his hands free and forced himself away. He got off the bed and stood beside it on stiff legs, looking at Chris's back. Chris turned his head half-around toward him, but didn't look at him directly. Chris was still watchful, still waiting, poised and ready as he was whenever he was challenged.

Ezra laughed unsteadily. "Do you remember the first time we met? You wanted me to accompany you precisely because you'd seen through the imposture and knew me for exactly what I was."

Chris remained expressionless. Ezra shrugged away the memory of Chris's instant knowledge of him that first day, the only man in the saloon to grasp how he was hoodwinking the lot; of Chris's wanting him to ride with them specifically because he knew Ezra was a damned good cheat. Harder to banish was the memory of Chris's warm smile when Ezra joined them the following morning, and the way he'd needled Chris and made the smile disappear into a long level stare he'd matched, the two of them edgy with one another from the start, always getting under each other's skin in myriad ways.

He reached for his clothes. Knowing Chris had always seen him clearly and valued him for himself was cold comfort. The past held no solace for what he had to get through now. He'd survived without Chris Larabee before he met him and he'd survive after losing him. He couldn't quite comprehend how he'd manage it at this juncture, but somehow he would.

"I'll be leaving tomorrow. I won't come to you again unless--" He broke off to consider the unyielding visage of a man few people were foolhardy enough to issue with ultimatums. He looked down to the shirt bunched in his fists. "Unless you can settle for wanting me, Chris. If you can stop hoping I'll be somebody else each time I arrive, if you can stop craving him while you're with me.... Well. If you can do that, you know how to find me."

He turned away. He dressed quickly, straightening his clothes with habitual but cursory attention. He took his weapons from the table and strapped them on. When he was dressed, he turned around. Chris was still sitting on the bed in the same position with his head half-turned toward him. He couldn't tell if Chris was watching him or not, but Chris stood to face him. Ezra looked at the naked, tousled figure, storing up the memory. He looked at last at Chris's face and met eyes too shadowed to read. A moment stretched as he waited to see if Chris would move or speak. Chris remained as still, silent, and stony as the Cerrillos Hills.

Ezra touched his fingers to his hat brim and left.

:::::::

The livery was busy despite its being well past dawn the following morning when Ezra entered. The hour of the day in this town of ceaseless activity appeared to make little difference to anybody but, perhaps, the storekeepers, who kept more or less regular hours. He was in good time for his own purpose. A small ranching burg about three hours south-west was his destination on the first leg of his journey home. He could reach it by noon and spend the hottest part of the day in the cool interior of a saloon. Hell, he might spend the whole afternoon and evening in the coolness, for that matter. He was weary enough after a sleepless night not to feel inclined to push himself unnecessarily, and there was no compelling reason for him to hurry back to Four Corners. He'd be there when he got there, as Buck was fond of saying. No one would expect him back from his latest "business excursion" until they saw him. He was usually absent for days longer than this.

He could admit, too, with raw self-knowledge, that he was flinching from the prospect of hours on the road with little to occupy his thoughts beyond ceaseless, and patently futile, reflections on what had been, and was, and would be. He was savagely eager to get the first necessary break over with, leave this place and reach a refuge where he could plunge every scrap of concentration into the anodyne of poker.

He hung his saddlebags over the rail of a stall and went to the harness room for his saddle. When he emerged with it, he halted, startled to see Chris silhouetted in the barn's doorway. Chris's hat was hanging down his back. The sun lit on Chris's thick tawny hair combed back from his forehead so he looked like a slender black candle with a flame atop. Ezra snorted away the fanciful thought as he tried to stem a welter of feelings at this unexpected meeting. It might be coincidental, an accident of bad timing on both their parts--though matters involving Chris rarely tended to the accidental....

Before he could move, or order his thoughts, Chris was stalking toward him.

"You're late, Standish."

"I, uh-- What?"

Chris grinned with the malicious pleasure he derived from discombobulating him and stopped a pair of feet away. Ezra's heart notched up its beat as he saw a familiar roguish gleam in Chris's direct gaze. The only shadows about Chris's eyes today were dark smudges below each.

"Meet me at my cabin at dusk." Chris stayed a correct distance from him, but his voice sank to a low salacious growl that wouldn't carry beyond Ezra. "If you last that long."

He was startled into a laugh. And with Chris's evocation of their first meeting came a flood of memories of other firsts, from their first sex to their first serious rift to their agreeing to try again and the rest of the milestones, good and bad, along the road they'd trodden more or less together the past three years. He sobered, feeling the usual tug of Chris's vivid presence, wanting nothing but to believe it could all work out. His body and his heart were ready, as always, to ditch all other plans and concerns and follow Chris's crooked finger wherever it led.

But that wasn't sufficient anymore. He couldn't go on living on old hopes while Chris's hope lay elsewhere. He stared helplessly at Chris over the awkward weight of the saddle in his arms.

Chris shed his playfulness like doffing a cloak. Moving with his characteristic sureness, he took a single step closer and stopped. Most observers might see in the tableau they made only a gunman exuding casual arrogance, but Ezra could sense the tension in Chris's seemingly loose-limbed stance. And the tiredness dragging down the corners of Chris's eyes was unequivocal.

Chris's voice was still pitched too low for any ears but his, but it was husky and resolute, no longer remotely teasing. "It'll be all right, Ezra. I've had enough bitching losses in my life. I ain't intending to lose what we've got as well."

Chris waited with the patience he drew on at the rare times when Ezra truly needed him to, looking at him the while with clear, steady eyes. It took only moments for Ezra to read Chris's honest intent, his willingness to try--and not even a moment for him to trust it. A peculiar feature of his attraction to this man was that one of Chris's qualities he'd most learned to appreciate, and depend on, was his integrity. Chris meant what he said. He wanted to protect what they had, valued it at least enough to make an effort to keep them together, and that was the sum of Ezra's desire. That was everything handed to him when he'd been sure he'd be left with nothing but a lifetime of second thoughts.

Not the last stop on the road yet, then, but another first for them. Another move onward together, wherever it took them. Maybe even to something better, with both of them now aware of the stakes and willing to stack the deck in their favor.

He smiled, briefly but wide enough to flash golden, and watched the tension flow out of Chris. And, seeing it, found one more swaddling-cloth for his newborn hope.

"Dusk it is, Mr. Larabee."

Chris's mouth barely quirked up at the corners, but his eyes warmed with an answering smile. He pulled his hat up with one hand, pushed the other over his hair and settled the hat on his head in a quick, practiced movement.

"All right, then."

Chris bobbed his head and turned on his heel, spurs jingling with his long purposeful strides as he left the livery. Ezra watched the dynamic figure until Chris rounded a corner and disappeared from view.

"All right, then," he murmured, and turned to restore the saddle to its place, the grin that slipped his control lighting his way like a blaze of glory.


End file.
